The present invention relates to a transmission.
The following discussion of related art is provided to assist the reader in understanding the advantages of the invention, and is not to be construed as an admission that this related art is prior art to this invention.
Transmissions are known in a variety of designs from the prior art. During operation, they can heat up significantly due to incurring power loss, which may result in the permissible mechanical rating being limited. As a counter measure, transmissions are frequently cooled in order to be able to release the full mechanical power as far as possible. There are various approached for cooling a transmission.
One approach involves a cooling of transmission oil across a transmission housing surface. The achievable cooling power is however significantly restricted by the available transmission housing surface. While it is conceivable to enlarge the surface through provision of ribs or the like, this is cost-intensive however.
Another approach involves the use of external cooling units for cooling transmissions. An oil delivery pump delivers hereby oil from the transmission housing to an externally installed cooling unit, which is normally embodied in the form of a cooling fin as an oil-air cooler. The problem here however is that the installation space required for the overall system is enlarged and the cooling unit represents a further separate module which is frequently not desired.
It would therefore be desirable and advantageous to provide an improved transmission to obviate prior art shortcomings.